[Sidenote: About 1490(?)]
Humbly besecheth your good lordshepe, your dayly servaunt and beedman,
John Paston, more kayteff than knyght, that it may please you of your
specyall grace to dyrect ought your lettres, sygned with your hand and
sealid with your seall, to the dreedfull man, Jamys Radcliff of
Byllingforth, Sqwyer, fermour of your wareyn ther, ought of wheys wareyn
no maner of man nor vermyn dare take on hym, for dought of your seyd
dredfull [man], to take or carye awey eny of your game ther, for fere
[of being] hangyd up among other mysdoers and forfaytours, as wesellis,
lobsters [_stoats_], polkattys, bosartys [_hawks_], and mayne
currys,--that the seyd Jamys shall, upon the syght of your seyd
wryghtyng, delyver, or cause to be delyverd, to your seyd besecher or to
hys depute, delyverer of your seyd lettres, at hys fyrst syght of the
same, vj. coupyll blake conyes or rennyng rabbettys, or some blake and
some whyght to the seyd nombre, to store with a newe grownd of your seyd
besechers at Oxenhed, more lyeke a pynnefold than a parke. And your seyd
besecher shall daylye prey to God for the preservacyon of your noble
estate longe t’endure.
[Footnote 133-1: [From Paston MSS., B.M.] This humorous petition,
though it bears no address, was certainly drawn up for
presentation to Sir John Radcliff, Lord Fitzwalter, the writer of
Letters 1024 and 1025, for he was lord of the manor of Billingford
in Norfolk, and James Radcliff, the farmer of his warren, was
evidently his kinsman. The date is probably, as Fenn suggests,
‘about 1490,’ certainly before 1495, when Lord Fitzwalter was
beheaded. The MS. is a rough draft in Paston’s hand.]
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